Thursday, March 7, 2013

Was Facebook right to ban this picture? - By Simon Kent, Toronto Sun

IS FACEBOOK A JEWISH/ZIONIST HEGAMONIST ENTERPRISE?






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http://www.torontosun.com/2013/03/06/tarek-fatahs-facebook-ban-is-senseless

TORONTO SUN

Was Facebook right to ban this picture?

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Simon Kent
 
By ,Toronto Sun

First posted: Wednesday, March 06, 2013 06:12 PM EST | Updated: Thursday, March 07, 2013 02:27 PM EST
tarek fatah facebook  

Facebook took offence at columnist Tarek Fatah posting this picture on his Facebook page. Administrators took it down and banned Fatah. The owner has given us permission to publish the image here.
 

TORONTO - A good man.

Three words used to describe Toronto Sun columnist Tarek Fatah by Meir Weinstein, the head of the Jewish Defence League (JDL) of Canada.

It’s a pity Facebook doesn’t share the love. Or the inherent tolerance in that remark.

The popular social media website has banned Fatah and left him unable to post.

Fatah, a leading Muslim thinker, author and broadcaster, thinks he knows the reason Facebook decided to unlike him, even though it won’t tell him personally.

It all started Monday when Fatah sought to access the popular social media site.

As he tried, a message appeared saying he had violated “community standards” when he shared a picture showing a young Australian Muslim girl in a hijab carrying a sign: “Jews haven’t Learn (sic). They need [picture of swastika] more than before.”

Fatah had copied it from the Australian Jewish magazine J-Wire after it had earlier been published on blog at the Sydney Daily Telegraph. Then he posted it as his Facebook “cover” with a caption denouncing Muslim anti-Semitism.

As Fatah writes: “My posting of the picture was clearly an act condemning anti-Jewish hatred among my own Muslim community, not endorsing it.”

Which is where Meir Weinstein comes in.

I asked him what he thought of Tarek Fatah’s Facebook shutout and his first words are the ones that lead this column.

Then he went further.

“Tarek Fatah does a great service to religious followers of all persuasions,” Weinstein told me. “He is a strong voice against religious fanatics and a direct counter to the forces of radicalism that would seek to change the civilized world.”

It would be good to think that Facebook acts as a unifying force. It is a social website after all.

Maybe it could be a digital equivalent of Hyde Park Corner in Central London where for centuries people would gather to argue the ideas of the day and then go their separate way.
No way. Ultimately, Facebook exists to make money. To do that it wants to know about you and the things you like and do while being famously quiet about itself.

Facebook also wants to make sure that there is a hall of mirrors separating the watchers from the watched.

Just one year ago, the word count of Facebook’s privacy policy was 6,910 words, more than double the amount of words in 2007. It is also way past the original privacy policy posted in 2004 that came in at around 1,000 words.

By comparison, as The New York Times has pointed out, the U.S. Constitution is 4,543 words.

This obfuscation comes most into play when Facebook decides to unilaterally ban a member.

Who are you going to call, anyway? There is no such place as the Facebook building waiting to hear your grievance.

We did eventually get a response via Meg Sinclair of Corporate Communications Facebook.

She said Facebook receives up to 2.5 billion pieces of content a day and sometimes users take exception to a post.

This happened In Tarek Fatah’s case. Therefore, it was removed and the author denied access. For now.

Since the Toronto Sun first made inquiries about this case, Fatah has received what he calls a “cryptic e-mail” from Facebook directing him to their, you guessed it, website.

Yet again when it comes to Facebook (and Twitter) there is only silence and a web page offering plenty of links but no direct contact.

We’ll keep you posted on developments. If you’ll pardon the obvious pun.
 
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Deep bias against Muslims in terror probes: Muthi-ur-Rehman Siddiqui - Economic Times, Mumbai, INDIA

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/deep-bias-against-muslims-in-terror-probes-muthi-ur-rehman-siddiqui/articleshow/18839928.cms

The Economic Times

Deep bias against Muslims in terror probes: Muthi-ur-Rehman Siddiqui

Muthi-ur-Rehman Siddiqui is a Karnataka-based journalist absolved for terror charges after six month in prison

7 Mar, 2013, 05.00AM IST, Aman Sharma,ET Bureau


“All that I wished was an apology from the state government that arrested and maligned me without any proof."

NEW DELHI: Muthi-ur-Rehman Siddiqui, the Karnataka-based journalist absolved of terror charges after six months in jail, blames BJP government in Karnataka and Congress-ruled Maharashtra and Andhra for having a deep bias towards Muslims in terror probes. "It is a pan-party problem," he says. On a day the home ministry told Parliament the government was "positively inclined" to consider rehabilitation of innocent victims cleared of terror charges, so that they can be "reintegrated" into society, a bitter Siddiqui told EThe was not interested in seeking compensation or rehabilitation from the government for his six-month ordeal.

"All that I wished was an apology from the state government that arrested and maligned me without any proof. However, nearly 10 days after I was released, there has not been a word of regret or remorse on the part of the state government or the state police."

Wajahat Habibullah, the Chairman of the National Commission for Minorities, told ET that the commission had taken note of Siddiqui's case and plans to intervene in the matter.

Saying he would find a job in journalism soon, Siddiqui said nothing could compensate him in monetary terms for the agony he went through. "The only solace is that I was released after six months in jail while Muslim youth arrested wrongly for the 2006 Malegaon blasts wasted six years in jail," he says. Siddiqui said his was not the first case when state agencies have been misled in terror probes and implicated innocent Muslim youth to 'solve' cases. The Maharashtra ATS is accused of arresting and charging nine Muslim youth for the 2006 Malegaon blasts while the Andhra police arrested 21 for 2007 Mecca Masjid blasts. All these 30 youth were released on bail after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) took over these cases and found the involvement of right-wing elements.

After the Hyderabad blasts last month, the Andhra Police was quick to question the youth released in the Mecca Masjid case. "It is not the BJP government in Karnataka alone which has an institutional bias against Muslims in terror cases...the Congress governments and police forces in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh have the same deep-rooted bias against Muslims in terror investigations. It is a pan-party problem." Siddiqui was arrested last August by the Karnataka Police for being the "mastermind" of a 15-member LeT that allegedly planned to assassinate rightwing leaders and certain journalists in Karnataka and Hyderabad.

The Karnataka Police accused Siddiqui, then a journalist with the Deccan Herald newspaper, of providing information about certain journalists to the co-accused in the case to help in the assassination plot. When it took over the case in November, NIA found no proof against Siddiqui. "If I were not a Muslim, I would never have been arrested in the present case ," Siddiqui said. Last month, NIA filed a chargesheet in the case against 12 of the 15 arrested persons, but did not name Siddiqui and one of his roommates, Yusuf Nalband, saying it had found no prosecutable evidence against them. A third person who worked with DRDO, Ahmed Mirza, was also released on bail after NIA did not chargesheet him but said further probe was on.